


The Mark

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Elvhen Ascension [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Mages (Dragon Age), POV Dorian Pavus, POV Solas (Dragon Age), Rift Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 04:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20772863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Lavellan grows more used to the mark on his hand.Dorian and Solas discuss it.





	The Mark

“Would you show some _patience_, darling?” Vivienne called, and Dorian laughed, walking alongside her as they moved up the hill, toward the Iron Bull and the Inquisitor. The Arcane Horror was smoking on the ground, and the warm dry heat of the Exalted Plains was grating on Vivienne, Dorian could see. She wasn’t so used to this heat as he was, not living in Orlais, in Val Royeaux, even as she used an enchantment to cool her skin. “You can’t get past that barrier without Dorian or I to help you.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, actually,” Lavellan called back, and Dorian raised his eyebrows, shifting the grip on his staff. The barrier shimmered in the light, shielding off the space around the corpse pit.

“What have you been thinking?” Dorian asked cheerfully. “How—”

Lavellan spread his palm, and with all the ease and practice of a magister unlocking the door to his home, he tugged on the string holding the enchantment up. It was spectacularly graceful, so much more so than battering down the shield with brute force, and while it was something Dorian could have done himself, it would have taken concentration, a minute’s focus, marginally more difficult than a few seconds of burning flame.

”Maker’s breath,” Vivienne whispered under her breath, and Lavellan poured out some oil from a flask, then setting the bodies alight. “When did you learn to do that?”

“I was reading about undoing enchantments,” Lavellan said softly. “You find the crucial thread and pull, like bringing down a tent.”

“Am I to understand, darling, that you consider yourself a mage now?” Vivienne asked. The uncertainty in her voice was palpable, almost showing, when nothing ever showed with Lady de Fer. “On the strength of that little mark of yours alone?”

Lavellan turned to look at her, his gaze focused and quietly analytical. His lips were pressed together in a thin line. Elven eyes were so wide, so beautiful, Dorian thought: for the most part, they were bigger than human ones, but he thought that the colour in them was deeper, too, and they seemed to have a shine to them than human eyes didn’t. And yet for all that, they weren’t necessarily more expressive.

Lavellan’s expression revealed nothing at all.

“One last pit on the map, boss,” Bull said.

“Due north,” Lavellan agreed, and he and Bull led the way.

“It’s dangerous enough having apostate mages wandering back and forth, without training, without testing,” Vivienne murmured. “But for _him_ to now be affecting things with magic beyond closing those little rifts…”

“He wouldn’t fall prey to a demon,” Dorian said. “You know that.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Vivienne asked. “He keeps that pet demon, calls it Cole; he’s very friendly with the apostate, sharing as they do that elven connection.”

“And he fights Corypheus,” Dorian said, speeding his pace. “As do we all.”

\--

Dorian was sitting closer to Solas than he needed to – he often did that. Solas didn’t think he was entirely wrong in judging the other mage’s interest. Dorian flirted with almost everybody, preening as he did so, but less so with Solas – with Solas, he was more inquisitive and curious, eager to learn that which he might, and so eager to repair the wrongs of his people. Dorian’s knees were spread a little apart, his body angled in toward Solas’.

He was used to sex, Solas supposed. It was plain in the way he held himself, that he liked the company of other men in his particular ways: he liked to be in control of his dalliances, was picky about them, and yet ashamed when his desires went against that which he wished he might like. Solas didn’t miss the way that his gaze lingered on Blackwall or Iron Bull, hulking warriors with too much hair, savage and rough with grizzled faces and rumbling voices. His gaze was hungry when he watched them both, the Iron Bull especially, and in watching the Templars in their training.

And yet with Solas, he was somewhat more reserved, less lustful. His gaze didn’t rove Solas’ body with such eagerness, such want, and yet he allowed himself to come so closer, _pressed_ closer. It was hard to say if he truly desired Solas, or merely _wanted_ to desire him. Or better yet, if it was simply that he ached for Solas to teach him, and showed his engagement thusly?

The Tevinter Imperium were more affectionate with one another than those of the Free Marches, of Ferelden, of Orlais, so Solas was informed. And yet, so too were those of Antiva and Nevarra, but he had seen no signs of easy affection, of physical familiarity, from Josephine or Cassandra…

They were on the bench in the base part of the library that Solas had made into his sanctum, had painted the walls that held him, and Dorian shifted even closer, so that their knees brushed against one another. Solas didn’t let himself react, and Dorian’s expression revealed nothing clear, no intention…

“Are you worried about it?” he asked.

“Worried?” Solas repeated, tilting his head. “About the Inquisitor’s mark from the rift?”

“Vivienne is concerned,” Dorian murmured, pressing his hands together in his lap, “that he’s attempting more than he ought. That he will open himself up for demonic possession, doing magic beyond the closing of the rifts...”

“Are you worried about this yourself?” Solas asked.

“No,” Dorian said. “But I’m worried that he’ll hurt himself. He only knows of magic what any rogue might know, Solas, so I thought, and yet now it seems clear to me that he’s actually _researching_, that he’s trying to… He seeks, it seems, to utilise that mark to its full advantage. But we don’t know what it might do to him.”

_It will kill him_, Solas almost said. _Though it wounds me, inevitably, it will kill him. But embracing it, making it a part of himself, will serve him longer than it would to fight it, to allow it to wage its war against his body. _How could he explain that? How could he?

“It is beyond any of us,” Solas lied smoothly, “to comprehend the power of the mark he carries, Dorian. We can only support him in his studies. He will need everything he can muster when comes Corypheus.”

Dorian nodded.

“Thank you,” Dorian said quietly. “I know I rather seem the handsome man with all the answers, you know, Solas, but it rather does comfort me, to receive your advice. It bolsters a man on.”

“I’m glad,” Solas said. “You’re a good man, Dorian. You are… kind, where it would be easier not to. You are unlearning, it seems, the tendency of so many of your countrymen to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, if it strikes them with the inconvenience of care.”

“It’s not good enough,” Dorian said.

“But it could be,” Solas said gently, even knowing it could not, would not, were his own plan to go as it ought. “So long as you work to make it so.”

“Thank you,” Dorian said again. “It… You aren’t what I expected.”

“I might say the same of you,” Solas murmured, gently squeezing Dorian’s shoulder. For a moment, Dorian leaned the slightest bit closer, as though he were going to attempt to kiss him, but whatever it was he saw in Solas’ face – and Solas did not show his disapproval, did not allow anything to show in his eyes – made him hesitate. “Might I give you some advice?”

“If you like,” Dorian said.

“It seems to me,” Solas said quietly, “that all your life, you were counselled to dally with, and perhaps to marry yourself with, those to whom you were not truly drawn. I might not be a woman, but it strikes me nonetheless, you are counselling yourself toward the appropriate, rather than toward the natural.”

“And what is appropriate about you?” Dorian asked, indignant, his cheeks burning a sudden red, tinting the olive brown of his skin. “An _elf_, and an apostate, and—”

“Clean, and academic, and handsome, and well-spoken, perhaps,” Solas said. “I know not whether it is imagined modesty or the nature of my pride which might make me more to the taste of your ideals." He paused to listen to Dorian laugh, and then said softly, "There are worst things to be attracted to than hairy beasts who don’t change their underclothes enough.”

“Really?” Dorian asked. “Name one.”

Solas smiled, and Dorian smiled back, however weakly.

“Imagine if I brought home a templar,” Dorian said softly, standing to his feet. “What _would_ my father say?”

When he left, Solas allowed himself to sleep for a time. Walking in the Fade almost soothed, though only almost.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq).


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